 | KEY MESSAGE: Understanding students’ academic, social, emotional, and mental health needs is essential to developing strategies to support student success. When we understand what our students need, we can target resources to support their learning and development. |
 | Talk about “acceleration” rather than “loss.” Many people believe the term “learning loss” does not accurately capture how students experienced the pandemic and misses the learning that did occur. Communication might instead consider describing the “impact of lost instructional time” or “disrupted learning,” and opportunities to “accelerate learning” – avoiding deficit language. |
 | Focus on forward-looking impact. It is important to emphasize that the pandemic has a long-lasting impact on student success, and that investments now will pay dividends both in the short-term and throughout a student’s experience. For example, providing high-quality tutoring today is an investment in our graduation rate years from now. |
 | Know who the services where available to AND who received services. |
| How were students identified for support, especially those who were disproportionately impacted by COVID? |
| If funds were passed onto schools, how were school funds determined? |
A theory of action, or logic model, is a tool to help you explain and talk about the reasons why resources were deployed as they were. The following graphic illustration of the relationship between a program’s resources, activities, and its intended effects is meant to help you speak about this investment priority. Logic models clearly and concisely show how interventions affect behavior and achieve a goal.
Download the graphic as a template you can edit.
Resource links related to research on this investment priority:
- Department of Education, (2021), ED COVID-19 HANDBOOK Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students’ Needs, Volume 2, https://www2.ed.gov/documents/coronavirus/reopening-2.pdf page 28
- Sloan McCombs, J., Augustine, C.H., Pane, J.F., & Schweig, J. (2020). Every Summer Counts: A Longitudinal Analysis of Outcomes from the National Summer Learning Project. RAND. Retrieved from: https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/pages/every-summer-counts-a-longitudinal-analysis-of-outcomes-from-the-national-summer-learning-project.aspx.
- Harris, D.N, Liu, L., Oliver, D., Balfe, C., Slaughter, S., & Mattei, N. (2020). How American Schools Responded to the COVID Crisis. National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice: Tulane University. Retrieved from: https://educationresearchalliancenola.org/files/publications/20200713-Technical-Report-Harris-et-al-How-Americas-Schools-Responded-to-the-COVID-Crisis.pdf.
This section contains a templates to support messaging of ESSER investments related to addressing lost instructional time through the use of data and targeting resources where they’re needed the most.
